Created on the north Kent coast, where the painter had decamped to escape depression and the pressures of London, it is, in effect, a tribute to Maria and an acknowledgement of the grief that Christina and Dante share—Christina, by contrast, expressed her feelings in the poem An October Garden. As his younger brother William would write a decade later, the portrait had a positive effect: “The experiment turned out a complete success. [Dante] perceived at once that nothing but an effort of will was needed to enable him to continue working at his art.”

The portrait, one of only two solo portraits he created of his sister in later life, was recently acquired by the National Trust and forms part of “The Rossettis – Siblings and Spouses,” an exhibition at Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton, a city in the English Midlands. Wightwick Manor was bestowed to the National Trust in 1937 by Rosalie and Geoffrey Mander, whose devotion to collecting Victorian art has made the property a significant place to see Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts work.